Aru Shah and the Song of Death

by Roshani Chokshi

  At that second, Brynne strolled over wearing shiny metal sneakers that she must have picked up from the shelf marked SHARP THINGS.

  “Check it out.” She grinned, showing them off. She pointed her chin at Aiden. “These kicks enhance the wearer’s fighting ability. They can only be used in one battle, though, so you gotta make it count. What’d you get?”

  Aiden held up a kit of UNIDENTIFIED NECESSITIES.

  “Classic Aiden,” said Brynne. “You’re such an ammamma.”

  Aiden tucked the kit into his camera satchel. “I’m not a grandma.”

  “Do you or do you not have snacks in your purse-slash-camera-bag?”

  “Let me live, Bee,” he said, but he was smiling.

  Bee? Ammamma? They were, Aru realized with a strange pang, close enough to have nicknames for each other. Aru turned to Mini, who had just walked over with a little bar labeled POWER NAP.

  “What’d you get, WebMD?”

  Everyone stared at Aru blankly.

  Mini pointed at herself. “Are you talking to me?”

  Aru laughed, and desperately wished she’d chosen a different fake nickname. “Oh, Mini, you kill me. Duh, I’m talking to you. You’re WebMD.”

  Mini frowned. “Since when—?”

  But Brynne cut her off. She glanced at the vial in Aru’s hand. “In need of a lot of bright ideas, Shah?”

  “You never know,” Aru said defensively.

  “I know that something sharp works better than a bottle full of nothing,” said Brynne. Her mace had taken the form of a blue choker around her throat. It glowed ever so slightly.

  “A bottle full of nothing works better than a head full of nothing,” Aru shot back. Despite her pledge to not hold a grudge, she blurted out, “I can’t believe you got us involved in all this! If you didn’t steal the bow and arrow, then how did you end up with them, anyway?”

  Brynne sniffed. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try me,” said Aru.

  “I found them on the sidewalk outside my house,” she said.

  “Oh, sure. A celestial weapon just happened to—”

  “See? I knew you wouldn’t believe me! You think just because I’ve got asura blood that I’m a liar—”

  “Trust me, it’s got nothing to do with your blood,” said Aru.

  That seemed to confuse Brynne, but before she could say anything more, Mini stepped between them, her arms extended to keep them a safe distance apart. “I believe you,” she said to Brynne, then she shot a glare at Aru.

  “Maybe the bow and arrow were planted there,” said Aiden. “I mean, that’s a pretty obvious place for someone to leave them….”

  “Yeah,” said Mini. “You could’ve been framed?”

  “Exactly!” Brynne said. “Someone knew I would bring them to the Otherworld to find the rightful owner and—”

  “And somehow that released an army of Heartless…” Aru added, somewhat reluctantly. Her mind was spinning. Who was Fake Aru? And what did she want with the bow and arrow?

  Aiden tapped his fingers against his camera. “It’s like this massive conspiracy,” he said excitedly. “Imagine breaking that story on the news. It’d be epic.”

  “Look!” said Mini happily. “We’re all on the same side!”

  Aru and Brynne just glowered at each other.

  “So…since we’re going to be working together,” said Aiden, “I think we should put everything behind us…. For the sake of the mission?”

  Aru was beginning to see why Brynne called him Ammamma.

  “I’m ready to move on,” Aru said. “But it would be nice if some people at least pretended to be grateful that we’re trying to clear her name.”

  “Grateful?” scoffed Brynne. “What, you want another fan just because you went on a big Pandava quest?”

  “What fans?” said Aru. She gestured at the empty space around them. “There’s no one here but us and a bunch of weapons. What’s your problem? And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re a Pandava, too.”

  At this, Brynne turned her head away. “Not really.”

  Aru ticked off two points on her fingers. “You got claimed by your soul father. And you got a cool weapon. Bam! Pandava.”

  “Is that all this means to you?” When Brynne looked back at Aru, her eyes were glossy.

  Aru looked down. Of course that wasn’t all this meant. For the first time, she felt like she belonged. That wasn’t something she would give up for anything. When she thought about never being able to come back to the Night Bazaar, never again holding magic in her hands, her stomach dropped. But it wasn’t like she was going to tell all that to this girl.

  Mini cleared her throat. “We have just as much to lose as you do,” she said quietly to Brynne.

  Brynne stayed silent, her jaw clenched.

  “How about a group elbow bump?” suggested Mini. “Handshakes are really unhygienic.”

  “No,” said Brynne and Aru at the same time.

  A flash of light went off.

  “Ugh!” said Aru, holding up a hand to shield her face. “No paparazzi!”

  Aiden lowered his camera, frowning. “Not paparazzi.”

  “He hates that word,” said Brynne, teasingly. “He prefers to be known as a ‘photojournalist.’ He takes pictures of everything.”

  “Including whatever dish Brynne experiments with in the kitchen,” said Aiden.

  We get it. You’re BFFLs, Aru thought grumpily. But at least they’d broken the tension.

  Brynne pointed at her shoes. “Okay, we’ve got the quest stuff. Where do we go from here?”

  “Urvashi said we should speak to the owner—Kamadeva,” said Aiden. “But where do we find him?”

  “Er, quick question,” said Aru. “Who is Kamadeva?”

  “‘Who is Kamadeva?’” repeated Brynne. “Don’t you know anything?”

  Faint sparks shot out of Vajra, but once again Mini steered Aru away from a fight.

  “Kamadeva is the god of love,” said Mini. “The bow and arrow belong to him—he uses them to shoot gods and mortals to make them feel passion for someone. Although the weapon didn’t look anything like how I imagined…The legends say that the bow he uses is made out of sugarcane, and the string is made out of honeybees.” Mini shuddered. “Not that I’m disappointed. I’m allergic to bees.”

  “Er, that’s all great information, Mini,” said Aiden. “But where does he live?”

  “Somewhere in the Midwest, I think? That’s what Boo said in class.”

  “Okay, so we’ll take a portal to Kamadeva,” said Aru.

  “I’ve got a better—and faster—idea,” said Brynne. She brought two fingers to her lips and whistled.

  The domed ceiling of the warehouse slid open, and down came a rush of wind. The sound of bleating filled the air. Aru had to remember to close her mouth when four gigantic gazelles the size of elephants burst through the clouds.

  Whenever Aru thought of a gazelle, she pictured one of those nature documentaries where a British dude calmly announces, And now the gazelle is in the jaws of death as the mighty lioness drags its carcass through the Sahara. Nature is cruel, but magnificent.

  These gazelles, on the other hand, looked like they snacked on lions for fun.

  Who Doesn’t Like Vegan Granola?

  “Thanks, Vayu!” hollered Brynne. She blew a kiss to the air, then looked coolly at Mini and Aru. “Gifts from my dad. Clearly, he sends his regards.”

  “He…he talks to you?” Mini asked.

  Brynne just lifted her shoulder and smiled smugly.

  Aru couldn’t help herself. She was jealous again. Far above, she could see the glimmering outline of the celestial city of Amaravati, ruled over by none other than her father, Lord Indra. Amaravati was where the apsaras danced. Supposedly, the whole place was covered in sacred groves and magical wonders, including a tree that granted wishes.

  Aru lifted her hand to wave at Indra, and then thought better of it. It wasn’t as though he would ha
ve seen her. And anyway, he hadn’t come to her defense when she was wrongly accused of stealing Kamadeva’s weapon. Aru tried not to feel disappointed, but it was like he was saying Cool! Bye! at the prospect of Aru no longer being part of the Otherworld. Was she so bad at being a Pandava that her own soul dad couldn’t stick up for her?

  “I think any god would acknowledge their offspring, as long as that offspring was worthy,” said Brynne.

  Mini’s lips tugged down, and she held Dee Dee a little closer to her chest. Vajra, on the other hand, looked as if it were ready to unfold and strike Brynne upside the head.

  Before them, the four gazelles each shrank down to a more manageable size, about as big as a horse. They looked slightly familiar to Aru…. Then it came back to her—they’d been there during the battle in the museum, to help fight the Sleeper. But she doubted they remembered her.

  Brynne strode in front of the gazelles and waved her arm like a game show host. “These are the four winds that my father controls. He lent them to me,” she said loftily. “North.” A gazelle the color of blue ice swung its head. Icicles dangled from its slender black horns. “South.” A gazelle the color of a blazing fire sank to its forelegs. Flames danced atop its horns. “East.” A gazelle the color of a pale pink rose lifted its chin. Flowers wound around its horns. “And West.” A gazelle the color of bright green grass, with horns that looked like twists of moss, bowed its head.

  “As daughter of the god of the wind, I’ll choose first,” said Brynne.

  But when she moved to the gazelles, they took a step away from her and toward Aru and Mini instead.

  “We remember you, daughter of Indra,” said the Gazelle of the West, bowing again. It turned to Mini. “And you, too, daughter of the Dharma Raja. It was an honor to fight by your side, and it would be an honor to carry you now.”

  Aru smiled widely. Her grin had nothing to do with Brynne’s shocked and furious face. (Fine, maybe it did, a little.) She reached for the Gazelle of the West and swung onto its back. Mini chose the Gazelle of the North. Aiden chose the Gazelle of the East, and Brynne leaped savagely onto the back of the Gazelle of the South. She gripped its horns, and flames danced around her fists.

  “To the abode of Kamadeva!” she shouted.

  The gazelles took off, galloping past the shelves in the Warehouse of Quest Materials before they leaped into the sky. Clouds broke over Aru’s head and cold air burned in her lungs as they headed back toward the mortal realm.

  Flying in the open air at night was unlike anything Aru had ever imagined. It was beautiful. Hundreds of feet below them, the city lights shone like fallen stars. Silvery clouds scudded across a black velvet sky. She could hear Aiden snapping pictures beside her. When he saw her looking, he said, “What? This is so cool!”

  “How are you taking pictures in the dark? They won’t come out.”

  Aiden raised his camera. “I bought some enchantments for it, like night vision and emergency accessory transformation.”

  On Aru’s other side, Mini was holding tight to her gazelle’s horns. “Did you know you can get hypothermia from air this cold? We could—”

  “Die?” asked Aru wearily.

  “Or your limbs could freeze and turn black and someone would have to cut them off,” said Aiden cheerily.

  “Yes!” said Mini, her voice brightening. “How’d you know?”

  “I have a big book of diseases,” he said. “My mom gave it to me. She’s a microbiologist.”

  Aru waited for someone to say Did we just become best friends? But no one did. For the next twenty minutes, Aiden and Mini talked over Aru’s head about weird medical conditions while she tried to close her ears. Aiden’s comment made her curious, though. How could his mom be a biologist if Urvashi was his aunt? That would make her an apsara. Was it his other parent who had blood ties to Urvashi?

  “What about your dad?” she asked. “What does he do?”

  Aiden’s tone instantly flattened. “He’s a lawyer. He’s going to practice in New York after he and Annette get married.”

  Annette? Suddenly, it was clear why Aru never saw his parents together, even though they lived in the same house. They were getting a divorce.

  “Oh,” said Mini softly.

  Aiden shrugged, mumbled something about checking on Brynne, and pushed his gazelle past them. Mini drifted toward Aru.

  “Should we say sorry?”

  Aru shook her head. “I think if we make a big deal out of it, it’ll only be worse.”

  Mini nodded. “Did you know his parents were splitting up?”

  “I didn’t put it together until now,” said Aru.

  But she had noticed there was something off about the Acharya household. It seemed like every time his dad’s car pulled into the driveway, Aiden would leave the house, his camera slung over his shoulder. His mom, Malini, rarely smiled at anyone.

  Wow, Shah, you really are a stalker, she told herself.

  I am observant, Aru thought. Huge difference.

  And you talk to yourself.

  Aru grumbled.

  “It must suck for your family to break up,” said Mini sadly.

  Aru didn’t know what to say to that. She partially agreed with Mini. The divorce had to be hard for Aiden. But she didn’t agree that it meant his family was broken. Lots of kids at school had divorced parents, and not all families needed a dad and a mom to be whole. Some had two dads, or two moms, or just one parent, or no parent at all. It wasn’t like her family, with just her and her mom living in a museum with a bunch of statues, was exactly “standard.” And anyway, families weren’t like a box of standardized-test-taking number two pencils. Families were like a box of assorted-color Sharpie markers: different, kinda stinky (but not in a bad way), and permanent whether you liked it or not.

  They passed through the border between the Otherworld and the human world, which looked like a thick, rolling fog. Time had moved forward in the mortal realm. Weak morning sunlight streamed across their skin. They were still surrounded by a barrier of magic, but to Aru it seemed as flimsy as frost on a windowpane and just as easy to see through. As the gazelles loped down highways and pranced across the tops of billboards, their delicate hooves sometimes bounced off the barrier with a sharp bell-like chime.

  When they were barely ten feet away from a minivan with a bored kid inside, Aru asked, “Can they see us?”

  “Nah,” said Aiden. “Watch.”

  The kid was more or less looking in their direction. Aiden waved his hands wildly and pulled his face into strange expressions. No reaction.

  Aru laughed, then did the same…and maybe the light caught her, because the kid started pointing and screaming.

  “Uh-oh,” said Aru. She tugged up the reins, pulling the gazelle higher. Oh well. Maybe she’d livened up someone’s game of I Spy at least.

  Soon they arrived at a little park. Below, the trees were bare and ice sleeved the branches. The gazelles gently lowered themselves to the ground, and Aru and her three companions found themselves in a clearing in front of a gleaming green sign that said LOVES PARK, ILLINOIS.

  “We’re a long way from A-T-L,” said Aiden. He rolled up his sleeves, and for the first time Aru noticed twin leather bands around his wrists. Before she could ask about them, the trees started changing right in front of their eyes. Blossoms burst from the branches. The pale sky transformed into a sheet of vivid blue. Puffy white clouds rolled above them and sparkling sunshine drenched the world. Now it looked like the home of the god of love.

  The three of them slid off the gazelles, gaping in astonishment. It was as if they’d skipped winter and gone straight to spring in a matter of seconds. After bowing, the gazelles opened their mouths at the same time and said, “The temperature is sixty-three degrees Fahrenheit, seventeen degrees Celsius. The southeast winds are blowing at six miles per hour, and the humidity is forty-three percent. All in all, favorable conditions in Loves Park. Fair winds, Pandavas!”

  “I’m not a Pandava! I jus
t got special clearance or whatever!” Aiden called, but the gazelles had already disappeared.

  “Why is it spring here?” asked Aru, looking around.

  Aiden snapped a photo of the scenery. “Probably because we’re close to Kamadeva. He’s the god of love, and love is supposed to feel like eternal spring.”

  Aru and Mini exchanged a look. Mini smothered a laugh, and Brynne glowered.

  “Aiden, are all your Instagram captions Ed Sheeran lyrics?” asked Aru.

  Aiden rolled his eyes. “It’s just something my mom told me.”

  “Aiden’s an artist,” said Brynne, but she said it like ar-teest. “That’s just how he thinks.”

  Aru mimicked ar-teest in her head for a good five seconds. Love like eternal spring? No thanks. Her favorite season was autumn, but she didn’t want love to feel like that. It would be crunchy and orange. Or worse…pumpkin-spice-flavored.

  Mini rubbed her eyes. “Ugh, spring. My allergies are acting up. I can already feel my eyes getting watery and I don’t have tissues—”

  Aiden reached into his camera bag and pulled out a tiny packet of Kleenex. Mini squealed with delight.

  At the same time, Brynne’s stomach let out a massive grumble. She clutched it, moaning, “God, I’m so hungry…. I didn’t have anything this morning except two Belgian waffles, four poached eggs, granola, homemade yogurt, six peaches, and a piece of toast.”

  Aru stared at her. “Yeah…who wouldn’t be hungry?”

  Aiden wordlessly handed Brynne a candy bar.

  “You da best, Ammamma,” she said happily.

  Mini shuddered. “My mom would kill me if I was eating candy first thing in the morning, wouldn’t yours?”

  At the word mom, Brynne’s face shuttered. Angrily, she shoved the candy bar into her pants pocket. “Let’s go,” she said gruffly, charging down a path through the spring woods.

  Guess you hit a sore spot, Aru thought to Mini.

  The rest of them followed. At the end of the path, the trees opened into a new clearing with a large pond. Just beyond it, hovering in the air above the pond rushes, was a blue door. Two signs hung from the tree beneath it. One said: